Seed&Spark, Crowdfunding for filmmakers by John Trigonis
- Audience research: what do they like??? Figure out your core audience (maybe 3 diff ‘buckets’) and talk to a few people in each bucket. Ask them things like what websites they visit, what celebrities or influencers they follow — helps you craft the style of your campaign
- Video: only 90 seconds, according to S&S first 15 sec should show film, and needs to GRAB viewer. DO NOT MAKE IT LONGER THAN 2min
- If you don’t have footage, find archival footage
- Even if you do- FIND ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE
- Determine amount you’ll raise: call as many of your friends and family as you possibly can, and ask them how much they’d be willing to donate.
- Fun way to connect or re-connect
- Adds weight to request
How many people are in your network?
- S&S says that to raise $10-14k you need 100-200 donors
- 10% of people you email directly will donate, so that means you need to email 1000-2500
- Incentives:
- Something you can send right away (shout out, digital photo or song download, digital coloring book)
- Make sure you’re thanking people right away
- Something to engage them later (film screening)
- Avoid stuff you have to mail or that costs money to produce
- Make sure your peeps are gonna donate on day 1; S&S says successful campaign raise 30% of goal in first week
- Be prepared to continuously engage people throughout the month
My Doc Journey 